Category: MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE OF REALITY (MER)

Contemplatives from eight different religious traditions—Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Islamic, Native American, Russian Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman Catholic—met at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado, to define their experience of Ultimate Reality as mystics.

After sharing their conclusions with other contemplatives and mystics they issued what became known as, “The Snowmass Conference Eight Points of Agreement”, as follows:

1. The world religions bear witness to the experience of Ultimate Reality, to which they give various names.

Comment: No, religions do not, as the slightest examination of some religions will show how mysticism is ostracised if not worse, derided, punished and far from accepted as mainstream or even allowable.

2. Ultimate Reality cannot be limited by any name or concept.

Comment: True!

3. Ultimate Reality is the ground of infinite potentiality and actualization.

Comment: For Reality, yes. If the implication is humans can attain it under their own volition, No! There is no evidence humans can achieve this enlightenment on their own. Reading and deep stud might bring humans to a realisation of Ultimate Reality, even a sympathy and empathy, but not the actual experience of this Reality.

4. Faith is opening, accepting, and responding to Ultimate Reality. Faith in this sense precedes every belief system.

Comment: Faith, hope and belief are for those who have not had the mystical experience of Reality. Those who have had the experience, (mystics), have no need of faith, hope nor belief because they KNOW. They do not need to “Fake It To Make it”.

Belief systems may be invented around the experience but with the actual experience these systems will eventuality fall under the weight of their lack of real foundation, as we see today.

5. The potential for human wholeness—or, in other frames of reference, enlightenment, salvation, transcendence, transformation, blessedness—is present in every human being.

Comment: The “potential for human wholeness” is a gift of Reality, comes only by the will of Reality (“grace”?). We are limited by human attributes, abilities, and species evolution in a reality created and nurtured by Reality alone.

6. Ultimate Reality may be experienced not only through religious practices but also through nature, art, human relationships, and service to others.

Comment: There is no “religious practice” nor “human service” or involvement that can create the experience of Reality. It cannot be experienced through artifice, ie., “art”, “nature”, animism “human relationships” or “service to others”.

The experience is caught, not taught. It cannot be evangelised, prosyletised or politicised.

The experience It is not abandoned by Reality to the vagaries of human stewardship, gifting, human effort, or human qualification. It is uniquely spontaneous and non human.

7. As long as the human condition is experienced as separate from Ultimate Reality, it is subject to ignorance and illusion, weakness and suffering.

Comment: Yes. But Reality is taking care of all that. Reality’s expectations are not yet our expectations, nor our current expectations Reality’s. Reality is in overall charge, not us.

8. Disciplined practice is essential to the spiritual life.

Comment: No it isn’t. It is essential for the religious life – concocted however sincerely by humans – but is not a requirement of experiencing Ultimate Reality. That, evidently, has been too important to Ultimate Reality to be left to humans.

… spiritual attainment is not the result of one’s own efforts, but the result of the experience of oneness with Ultimate Reality.

That’s right.

Number 8 seems to contradict itself. There’s muddle.

Summary of Comments

I’m puzzled by the idea these eight contemplative results of the experience of Reality are being associated with the idea religions can now take charge of some implied need for “religious practices”, for “faith”, for the need to worship nature and love each other etc, when the very experience of Reality expunges all need for suchlike human preoccupations.

The mystical experience of Reality (MER) makes it axiomatic we become better human beings while we are human but there is more afoot than being merely human, as MER primarily attests. If we don’t get this we don’t get MER.

The fruits of the experience of Ultimate Reality are not mere human mind stuff, emotion, mythomania or meme. As part of human evolution into Reality, MER rids us of these old, materialistic human rigidities.

The message of Ultimate Reality is that Ultimate Reality is in charge of creation, which includes the human condition, and that humans have been given no stewardship of this reality whatsoever.

Yet I see the same assertive human distortions, (power grabbing?), in some of the eight points that also misled the biblical Jesus and lead to the failure of his mission.

It is sad to see such spiritual hubris persisting to this day by way of religions. It brings to mind the C.S. Lewis tale of the elder Satan comforting the younger Satan for letting his pupil have feelings for “God”. The elder Satan counselled the young Satan to divert his pupil into Christianity.

While these eight points are a welcome demonstration of the human condition emerging from its chrysalis to awareness of its spiritual identity, it’s sad to see it’s still being stifled by the demands of human mindsets like religions. Is this the innocence of evil at work?

QUESTION:You say you’re not a teacher, a guru etc. You say you’re not here to pass on your experiences of Reality. So what do your experiences mean?

ANSWER: I am growingly persuaded my experiences are for my benefit, so are tailored accordingly just for me. I don’t know why.

They are not experiences with a general meaning applicable to everyone, though they do have basic physical similarities with other historical experiences of Reality.

I feel my experiences are still developing me beyond just being a present day human.

Q:So your experiences have no message for humanity?

A: Not directly from me, no. My example might help, but that would be a process that’s not in my hands.

Q:Is that why you don’t teach, invite pupils, get into social internet sites, ask for money?

A: Yes. I’m directed and developed by my mystical experiences of Reality every moment of my life. There are more important things afoot for me than being merely human. For me, extraneous human clutter is dealt with by the fruits of discernment and avoidance.

I have the code word humans gave me when I was born – my human name. But now I wear the masks my experiences have given me. They help me endure the human experience.

Q:Presumably you have none of the natural human problems?

A: There’s nothing usual about human problems.

All human “problems” are man made, creations of the mind. The mind, like the “problems” it creates, dies on death. (Is everything outside Reality in entropy?).

Even if your troubles seem to come from another person or exterior circumstances, it is you that has allowed yourself into that situation. You are oblivious to the consequences you have allowed your mind to sleepwalk you into …

Your mind is in default most of the time, just going along with other defaulting minds without ever thinking for yourself – just going with the human herd. Do you have any real values, do you need what values you think you have or have you just accepted what stuck as you slept through a life without examination?

The mind works autonomously as a means of evolution. But uncontrolled, running mostly on default, it’s an impediment to human development. It denies humans the real contentment that MER (The Mystical Experience of Reality) indicates is every human’s true inheritance. Contentment is snatched away by minds running on default.

In Reality there are no problems. There’s no need for them this side of Reality either.

Q: What’s the answer?

A: I can only suggest just being still, getting down to examining the very roots of the “problems” you’ve allowed yourself to get into. This will need persistence, change.

Just persist. The practice becomes a habit, a powerful, transcending habit.

There are no “troubles” in Reality or real ones out of Reality, none whatsoever …

All your lifetime’s un-examined accretions of lust, anger, greed, all your personal, family, social relationships, ideological attachments, attitudes, and finally, ego are nothing to do with the real you buried under them. As you progress they will peel off as if you never had them. The real you will emerge in full bloom.

If you’re called to be a Seeker the process will soon grip you and lead you on. It’s an easier process for you. You were born for it.

However, all humans can find themselves, know themselves and be content this side of Reality.

Reality seeks you as much as you seek Reality. Reality is the real reason for being.

Long-time follower of this Blog, Ron Krumpos, starts the debate.

Ron has degrees in philosophy from Northwestern University, Lucknow University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

His book, The Greatest Achievement In Life, is a comprehensive account of mysticism as experienced today. Ron interviewed 10 mystics from around the world to write it. It is a free reprintable pdf book with more than 70,000 downloads so far.

Ron: Keith, you said about MER, “It’s caught, not taught.” In religious terms what is ‘caught’ is grace. Divine grace is spiritual assistance not specifically earned by its recipient. Most mystics believe that divine grace is offered at all times

Keith: Grace is “A state of sanctification by God” according to Word Web dictionary. But that’s just an historically religious statement that gives the words “sanctification” and “God” old cultural meanings that have nothing to do with my experiences of Reality every year from the age of about 14 years to my late thirties.

Is there any empirical or experiential evidence that the experience is offered at all times? It’s not an option.

If MER (Mystical Experience of Reality) is an evolutionary factor could this suggest we will all become this Ultimate Reality finally anyway, grace or no grace? (Is that what the biblical Jesus meant when he said, I and my Father (God) are one?).

Ron: … in all places and to all beings, the sentiments, thoughts and actions of the ego self, and individual isolation, block its entry.

Keith: “… sentiments, thoughts and actions of the ego self, and individual isolation, block its entry” is unlikely if my experience is to be trusted.

The phenomena is spontaneous and does not need or accept invitations or permissions. The idea that anything could “block its entry” seems self contrary.

I certainly didn’t want to block my special experiences, nor could I have resisted such an engulfment even if I’d known how … The ineffable joy, oneness with all things then, now and forever, the knowledge, understanding, and humility, all given without any taking is truly ineffable. I was my true self. I tried desperately, bitterly to resist being gently deposited back into my humanity when each episode ended. There was never any question of choice in any of it.

Ron: “God’s grace is the beginning, middle and the end. When you pray for God’s grace, you are like someone standing neck deep in water and yet crying for water.” Ramana Maharshi.

Keith: The implication of this quote seems to be that everyone can experience the phenomenon of their own volition if they just pay attention. This is not my personal experience. My experiences were spontaneous, as I’ve said.

Ron: “God continually showers the fullness of his grace on every being in the universe, but we consent to receive it to a greater or lesser extent.” Simone Weil.

Keith: By the same logic a tulip could consent to rain or refuse it. It seems unlikely MER has ever been or could be left in the care of humans any more than to plants.

The hard question here is, can we do anything personally about emerging into what the mystics tell us we truly are?

On the evidence of the biblical Jesus’s attempts to evangelise the mystical experience of Reality, and other such failed attempts of historical note, plus my own anecdotal witness, I’d have to say No.

The consciousness of the MER I refer to (see Mystics and Consciousness Part I) seems unique to mystics. It is that consciousness of MER that defines the mystic, in my experience.

I suspect there is an even greater consciousness even today’s mystics haven’t yet experienced. Even that greater consciousness might not be the limit of such evolutionary progress. There are likely many more, greater and greater levels of cosmic consciousness that both humans and mystics in their present form will never experience.

Present human consciousness seems limited to a primary human level of evolution. But mystical experience of consciousness are different. They do not have usual human biological limitations at all.

Mystics are not so much ‘wired’ differently but are used differently to experience vastly more about an endless, benign Reality. …

Mystic brains seem to receive their consciousness rather than create it, as some scientists propose. (This might explain why those who accept reincarnation claim mystics wont have to face the human experience again after bodily death).

The gift of mysticism?

Are the fruits of MER (Mystical Experience of Reality), not so much the analytical thinking, logic and reason of the rational human animal, the plodding, careful integrity of the scientific truth seeker that takes us through the practicalities, the physical aspects of life? Or is it the experience of Reality that is MER?

Is MER the evolutionary unveiling of a much truer, non-human perception of our existence?

Is it a profound insightfulness, intuitive empiricism, a dissolution of our materialism, an engulfment by the joy, love and true everlasting self of true wisdom, the complete knowing of the Reality in which all things really exist and have their true being?

Is our destiny nothing so mundane as the stars and planets? Are we more than that?

Are we emerging?

Is this what the historical phenomenon of mysticism is all about: that All Is Well?

Non mystics take their consciousness from the society or culture in which they find themselves.

Largely by default they absorb and are taught the commonality of their experience of existence by the entertainment industry, plays, films, books, TV, taboos, fads, fashions, trends, religions, cultures, societal norms, ideologies, politics and suchlike – all impermanences, mostly mythomanic.

This is the extent of their consciousness. Gurus call it “sleep walking”. This lower defaulting consciousness defines the limits of most humans. They are not mystics.

Mystics are given the big C Consciousness of the Reality of cosmic existence. This Blog calls the experience the Mystic Experience of Reality (MER), in which all things ever known and unknown, including matter and spirit have always and will always exist.

Some modern physicists are suggesting Consciousness is evolutionary human “emergence”. Elsewhere in this Blog I have likened the process to the chrysalis effect.

Whatever, that experience is what makes mystics fundamentally different. It’s probably why Drs Burke then Sinetar suggested mystics are a separate human species. Some of today’s physicists suggest this Consciousness could be the cosmos’s fundamental nature from which everything emanates (what older generations reduced to a diminutive worldly humanoid they called God?).

Whatever, this experience is why mystics ignore the unrelenting impermanence of human consciousness. To them and true Seekers mere human consciousness is a hindrance to evolutionary fulfillment.

There is not much of value at the level of ordinary human consciousness unless you want to stop evolution, just remain in comfortable stasis with the perennial struggle to be a better human being.

(Ironically, being a better human being is axiomatically, automatically achieved as a by-product of capital C Consciousness, MER).

Ignatius Loyola who despite founding the Jesuits was brave for his times by admitting mystic reality is nevertheless “the better part” of human fulfillment.

The kind of phenomena an earlier post introduced was about the kind of phenomena that tries to convince Seekers they have reached the ultimate mystical experience of Reality. This kind of phenomena, however convincingly powerful is a distraction on the path to what has been called enlightenment.

The real Mystical Experience of Reality has attributes that everyone on that path experiences. These attributes do not vary from person to person. They are the essential conditions of MER throughout the history of mankind, in all cultures, climates and personal circumstances. They are the signs of the true path. If any one of them are absent the experiences are not true MER. Such experiences are to be ignored as mere phenomena.

Such phenomena are autonomous, of the human senses, mind stuff, emotions, brain memory and activity. They are not MER. They are in fact non spiritual – just indiscriminate clutter, distractions to the true, focused, called Seeker.

If you have realised that through no fault or effort of your own you are a Seeker in the grip of a passion to know the truth you may have experienced phenomena that come with the condition.

This can be sphincter-movingly frightening or at least alarming and disruptive. They can awaken you from sleep or appear in your pensive or meditational states and cause thunder in your heart, or calm indifference if like me you have been alerted to the possibilities of such disruptions and how to deal with them.

My eldest son gave up all further attempts at meditation after his first encounter with the giant eye that regarded him with a calm but powerful examination. Regrettably, on still seeing his frightened apprehension when he told me about it long afterwards I broke into bent-over explosions of laughter, the tears running down my face. It felt good to be so alive in every fibre of my being as I shook with uncontrollable mirth. Mystics have a reputation for anarchical appreciation of the tragi-comic nature of the human condition.

But seriously, the Eye revealed my son was obviously not ready so I did not pursue the subject.

My experiences of phenomena

Compared to some of the phenomena I have read or been told about, my experiences were mild and nowadays less frequent. I am beginning to suspect they happen whenever I approach any aspect of MER’s diverse human or non human nature with an extra intensity or concentration, whether emotional or intellectual, of my own volition or not.

My experiences of phenomena include, among other less urgently dramatic examples, elderly, apparently mentally disturbed males or females, even couples, rushing anxiously into my space and being equally ruthlessly stopped in some instances by tall white, characterless apparitions behind them that make them suddenly disappear. The question still arises in me about whether the phenomena disappeared into my space or were stopped in time.

Later on, the phenomena of strangers appearing right in my face disappear in the disruptively awakening nano second I become aware of them. None of them are threatening. Some are as astonished as I am, even bewildered or, in one case, tearfully turning his back to hide his very agitated and unwanted nakedness.

So my phenomena are relatively benign. Other people have far more dramatic, frightening phenomena that threaten them. Mine never threaten me, despite their alarming suddenness.

I was taught that whatever stage I got to I was never to stop my seeking for the ultimate truth of existence, no matter how overwhelmed I was with the certainty, majesty, power, or benign attributes and assurances I have reached my ultimate goal. I was to assure myself I had not. I was to be respectful, but carry on; the phenomena would disappear. They would have no effect on me.

I have not experienced phenomena of that level, and hopefully never will. I’m hoping I have by passed them somehow. They seem totally irrelevant to my experiences of Reality (MER).

Q: What does Mysticexperiences.net bring to this age’s understanding of mysticism?

A: The Blog started as an aid to help me understand my experiences of what I thereby discovered were Mystical Experiences of Reality.

My exploratory writing alone was hugely validating, So were all the helpful Comments Likes, Followers and emails the Blog prompted from around the world from Seekers, writers, professionals, academics – from over 70 countries.

Q: So it worked?

A: Yes. It still is working.

After hiding my experiences for nearly 60 years, by starting this web site, I discovered I am a mystic and that the subject is studied in universities around the world with vigour and enthusiasm by physicists, theologians, philosophers, psychologists and students.

I learned that Oxford University alone archived 6,000 case studies. This archive is now growing and being studied and added to under a Templeton Foundation grant at Wales University.

One of the Blog’s Followers, a Philosophy Master, questioned universities on a technical question about mysticism and got personal correspondence from published professors in 58 universities.

As a result, I learned I was not alone, nor mad … So I could have “come out” of hiding as a mystic years ago with no one raising an eyebrow; at least in learned circles. Among my friends, not so much …

Friends’ reactions have ranged from politely ignoring the subject to one sideways muttered suggestion my MERs were psychotic. Others have become Followers of the Blog.

Also, I was warned by a Sufi school I was eventually initiated into that my friends, colleagues, acquaintances, that even my reading matter and lifestyle would change dramatically. They did, almost without me noticing. I am now a friendly recluse.

I feel uncomfortable with most humans, particularly with the unrealised ones (see prophecy 15 below …). However, I do seem to have developed empathy, tolerance and patience with Seekers. I avoid the merely curious.

I also feel the web page joins the challenge of updating the limited understanding of previous generations. And it is meeting the questions by Seekers bewildered by their unbidden, unremitting passion to know the truth of existence.

Little do some Seekers know )they seek the Reality experienced by the mystics, or that Reality planted their passion in them and is drawing them to Itself. Seekers are different to the commonality of humans; emerging.

Their destiny is assured and more immediate than most, bearing in mind the focus they need to respond to their calling.

It is knowable by direct individual experience within the parameters of the individual’s development. (Eg: as humanity developed it reached the ability to go from seeing in black and white to the qualia of seeing colour; so mystics seem to be chosen in like manner, without obvious qualifications;

It is Consciousness emerging;

It is benign, totally accepting (ie: inexpressibly loving);

It is constantly creating and developing;

It does not allow anything to interfere in Its purpose, (including humans);

It is everything in Reality; it provides, guards, guides, nourishes, replenishes, aids, observes, asserts its purpose;

It is all powerful; destroys, rebuilds, recreates;

Reality’s form is non material; non human, though everything shares Its ingredients as It shares ours. We are It;

It has given humans all they need and rarely if ever reacts to human wants;

It gives, never wants;

Reality is only interested in individuals;

Humans are at a very primitive, early stage of existence;

Prophecies can arise from the mystical experience, but such prophecies rarely get their timing right, (ie: “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” …).

However modern mystics can prophesy that religions, ideologies, lust, anger, greed, nations, isolated and isolating cultures, tribes, families, dependencies, attachments to anything but the development of the individual, are withering and dying in the timely fashion Reality has of asserting Itself. Human ego will also disappear as a disposable appendage. It will be tamed and anyway doomed to permanent death with the disposable brain and body.

If some eastern schools of mysticism are to be believed, Reality develops Itself, absorbing everything into It, including humans, to become pure spirit like Itself. I certainly was not human in my experiences. I resisted desperately every time I was returned from my experiences into being human again. Now, I hope with all my body, mind and strength that being with Reality is my destiny after death.

All who experience Reality will come to know ineffably that All Is Well. We’re under better stewardship than we can provide.

Has Dr David Chalmers discovered that “Qualia”, Consciousness, and “Strong Emergence”, are radical, newly discovered, fundamental, absolutely non-human elements of the cosmos? Is he describing the Mystic Experience of Reality (MER)?

The first interview has attracted 445 comments, including some asinine remarks sadly expected in social media nowadays. Other comments contain seriously interesting perspectives.

Is Dr Chalmers introducing a new era of scientific thought, that the Mystical Experience of Reality (MER), is after all, “qualia”, “Strong non-human Emergence”, Consciousness?

Bearing in mind the scientific community uses the word ‘ineffable’ to describe MER, (“too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words”), is Dr. Chalmers’ now suggesting an historical, scientific leap forward in human evolution, a birthing?

If so, is the modern mystical experience the same experience the ancients called “God” that became smothered in religion, ideologised, politicised with human misunderstanding and spiritual disappointment, unfulfillment?

Has the paradigm of the human condition shifted?

Dr. David John Chalmers is a world renowned, rising young figure in the world of science. He is a philosopher at New York University and the Australian National University, Professor of Philosophy and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at NYU, and also a Professor of Philosophy at ANU.

Mankind has a limited view of mysticism.

The common, vulgari understanding of the word “mysticism” implies an unattainable “mystery”, or “myth”, whereas in fact a mystic has experienced something that has always existed and always will exist. It is no mystery or myth. Hundreds of university departments around the world are studying and delivering courses on the subject.

Everything known and unknown already exists, is developing, is yet to be fully discovered, is not created by us – or any other species.

Scientists can’t invent this Reality. It exists in and of itself. Scientists and mystics just “discover” its attributes – the scientists by experiment, the mystics by experience.

Mystics experience a Reality that scientists merely “discover” piece by piece by scientific experimentation and comparative observation yet it is still not commonly or fully known and probably can’t be because ordinary humans are not presently evolved enough to be able to know. But this doesn’t mean Reality is forever “mystical”, “mysterious” unknown or individually unattainable.

To understand the human condition it is important to know the Reality in which we exist is true. This Reality just is and we are that. We humans arise out of Reality. We are made of Reality. Everything known and unknown is Reality. Earth itself is part of this greater Reality that is much bigger than anything conceived by humans or their “Gods” or gods … Reality is not just about humans. It’s about everything, undeniable but indescribable.

As part of the process of Reality our physical earth fits us because we came from it physically. We are made of the same stuff. We come from the elements of the earth, are custom tailored by the earth. The earth is likewise customised to fit us. It’s the same with us and the greater Reality; we are compatible, synchronised; ever changing to match the exigencies of the greater Reality of the never ending, ever transitioning characteristics of the material and nonmaterial (spiritual?) cosmos of which everything is a part.

In this continuing process our minds appeared. The mind developed as a consequence of earth and humans being part of this creative, manipulative effect of the greater, non human environment of Reality.

So, the word “mysticism” is just a very limited human word. It’s not big enough nowadays to describe even the little we now understand. The growing acceptance of the existence of mystical experience of reality (MER) has made our old understanding of mysticism obsolete. The word still has lingering, wrongful connotations of occultism, spiritism, primitive ignorance, magic, religions, ecstasies, superstitions, mythomanias and cultural/political mischiefs, etc. In Reality however, where all things are perfect and all is well, there are no names – everything just is, and we are that! Mystics don’t need names. Nothing is “mystical” – it’s all Reality.

Mankind’s limited view of the mystic experience of Reality is not new. As the biblical Jesus discovered at the temple, even there at that part of the early human attempt to grasp what human existence is all about, religion and monetisation were already vulgarising the evidence.

It is not materially curious or easily enthused, avoids social gatherings, crowds, noise. It does no harm. The ways of the mystic develop into waitfulness, watchfulness, consciousness, the experience of wonder, joy, acceptance, peace and complete belonging in the fullness of Reality – Cosmic Consciousness.

Q: This is definitely not a description of any common human condition. (Laughs).

A: No.

Q: In fact it’s almost total alienation from the human condition.

A: Yes, like rebirthing out of the physical, mental, even religious and spiritual states.

Q: Isn’t this alienation difficult, living like this with humans on a day to day basis?

A: Oh very. Quite stressful. Dr Burke and Dr Sinetar suggest the people of MER are so different they’re a new species. The leading US physicist Mikio Kaku says the whole human race is barely born in cosmic terms. (For myself, I’d say humans are presently at a very primitive stage of development – at the consciousness level of a toilet seat …).

Q: (Bursts out laughing). Really! So how do you cope living with humans then?

A: I’ve adopted a coping mechanism – I behave legally, decently and honestly. It makes my condition invisible to most humans, even some Seekers.

Q: Is that difficult?

A: Not if your mind is habitually taken somewhere more consequential than being merely human … I am freer than most of what harasses the human condition: lust, anger, greed, attachments and ego. (Though not completely yet …). (Smiles).

The following is posted for Seekers as a valuable seminal thread to be pulled at and unravelled as an important step on the path.

Nothing in this spiritual serendipity should be hurried as mere narrative. Each phrase is laden with direction. Therefore each phrase should be taken on its own. It should be spiritually digested with reverence to attain its full effect before moving onto the next phrase.

To help identify the phrases, they have been separated and underlined to show how to recognise and stabilise contemplation/meditation one phrase at a time.

Each phrase could take you a year or more of contemplation – or become an immediate blinding light of knowing. (Each of us is programmed to our own individual needs, in my experience of the mystical experiences of Reality, MERs) :

We were discussing my mystical experiences of Reality (MER) in the Mexican sunshine when my friend said:

“So after all that, where are we in this conversation now? I mean, do you know who you are any more?”

I said, “I’m not a Who, I’m a What.”

This is the kind of enigmatic reply you get from gurus (not that I’m a guru) that so exasperated me in the early days. It annoyed my friend too, I could hear his eyeballs click as his eyes rolled. But now I understood why the elucidations of so many gurus were and are so enigmatic.

Why? Because if the gurus give a full explanation all the questioner gets is the guru’s definition. But if the questioner is left to work the answer out from the guru’s deliberately enigmatic clue, the questioner finally owns the answer as a personal experience. Some would say that’s why humans are humans – here to record their experiences. (George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, used to say: “I know what the gospels and the prophets say, but Friend, what sayest thou …? ).

Personal experience is the beginning of wisdom,it is knowing rather than second hand description, like having to work out how to shell the peanut before making the experience of eating the peanut uniquely yours. It’s like seeds sown yourself making you understand the results in all weathers and climates.

This is just a material explanation of the importance of experience. As the true experience of Reality is indescribable but undeniable, you can see how important experience is compared to second hand reportage which is hearsay. It’s the difference between being an “awakened one” or “a sleepwalker”.

A paper menu for instance does not contain the nourishment of the actual experience of the food the menu is describing, however accurately.

From this you will see why Jesus’ disciple who was nicknamed “Doubting Thomas” was an exemplar of truth seeking.

Truth is hidden in experience. That’s why scientists experiment to get at materialistic truths but the mystics don’t have to because their experience has given them a completely different, macro perspective of existence …

My friend laughed, “So are going to tell me what a What is?”

I said, “You’re a friend. I would do you no favours by feeding you my answers. Feed yourself. You already know. The answer also comes with a lot of extras, all for you. Remove your veils…”

Q What do you think the mystical experiences of Reality are all about; their purpose? Do they have any?

A: Something throughout history has been causing some people to have experiences of as much of Reality as their current state of existence can bear, creating massive, ineffable, personal epiphanies – an indescribable but undeniable awakening to a conscious Reality of existence.

This is an awe provoking, overwhelming experience of truth, humility and veneration, the memory of which still shakes me deeply.

It erodes your humanity so as to enable you to be something other, something that is your true, secured destiny for ever. That, to me, seems to be its purpose.

Q Do you know what that “other” is?

A: Well, the epiphanies are a profoundly joyous state while you’re in them, less so when you come out of them. We are much accepted, loved, that’s for sure. Whatever you are in that state is what you always have been and always will be. You are a permanent fixture of a Reality much greater than being merely human.

The experiences are a mighty but benign, accepting, loving power beyond human experience. They are of an existence beyond ourselves.

After the epiphanies, you develop a growing understanding, consciousness, that everything is Reality; where everything that exists, known and as yet unknown, is only a part of that Reality, including humanity.

Q So what does it all mean? How does this effect the human race?

A: Well, the epiphanies raise the question, are we being harvested? Are we being seeded and grown? I don’t think the experiences are a seeding process. If they were, humanity would be a great deal less primitive than it is now, wouldn’t it?

Whatever we think the meaning of these experiences are they can only be speculative.

But I think we can rule the experiences out as any product of the brain, physical or otherwise – they are not imagination, creativity, intuition, logic or reason or merely biological – the experiences are too completely beyond human knowledge or comprehension. This leads me to speculate that the brain of the mystic is just a receiver suddenly awakened.

There is no total concensus on what existence/consciousness of Reality is, or even IF it is – even the scientific world cannot agree on that yet … (laughs).

However there is an historical consistency in the witness of mystics that this Reality does exist outside the merely human experience.

We don’t even know why the experiences only seem to happen to individuals – contrary to all human instinct to huddle, to adopt ideological collectivity of one sort or another that always change for the very worst and historically fail anyway.

What the experiences of Reality also seem to reveal is that everything we call human is in a transitional state. Everything, human and non human, is progressing towards complete integration with the consciousness that is Reality. Some scientists are even suggesting humans won’t exist eventually. I find that plausible from what I’ve seen of Reality.

Q So how does this affect those who have had the experience when they come back into the human present?

A: The knowledge of the existence of this greater Reality makes me, for instance, realise there’s nothing in the human experience worth studying or even worthy of note in the greater scheme of things.

I must warn you that’s only my experience. You can only really know things by personal experience. You have to know what I’m talking about from your own experience, not from anyone else’s.

Q So would you finally conclude the human race is being “harvested” then, for instance?

A: Well, so far as the human condition goes, there’s no overwhelming human evidence these ancient epiphanies have produced a very effective seeding result so far, is there? (laughs).

Nevertheless, I don’t have any better guess than “harvesting” as an explanation of what these experiences of Reality are all about.

Q Could such harvesting be by other beings?

A: I think not. Reality doesn’t seem to be controlled by “beings”. Reality would do its own “harvesting” or “seeding” – like the natural processes of birth or the chrysalis effect.

Q So back to the first question – “What do you think the mystical experiences of Reality are all about; their purpose?”

Consequently, many aspects of the current human condition are in the primitively ugly state of “much ado about nothing,” causing unending unrest and chaos when there are more important things to attend to than being merely human. Mystics have dubbed the majority of humans as “sleep walkers”.

So in the meantime, Reality goes on with or without probably 90 per cent of the human race’s cognizance of Reality’s existence or purpose. We are all on one side or the other of knowing the existence of that benign enigma.

Perhaps these are early days in humanity’s destiny. We are after all supposed to be less than four billion years old compared to the known universe’s 15 billion years, not including the rest of the unknown universees.

Q Does any sense of your own duty or destiny arise from these “epiphanies” you experienced?

Q Why this Blog then?

A: The blog started as a means of analysing my experiences, meditating on them, contemplating them, sometimes being prompted by them, unburdening myself of my humaness. I wanted to contact anyone else who might have had them too.

Writing can be a uniquely profound way to discovery and meaning. This subject particularly demands nothing less than using writing’s ability to deliver total integrity and precision.

I also hope others having the same experiences of Reality, or who are genuinely called as Seekers, get some shared validation, some comfort and encouragement from my experiences. They are submitted respectfully.

As for my personal destiny, I have seen it. The bad news is now having to endure being partly human. The good news is, being partly human is only temporary, terminal. (Laughs).

In the meantime, there is much comfort and encouragement in the specific, spontaneous, meaningful assurance my experiences gave me in my thirties: